happy holiday weekend. good night from new york. it has been a night, as you said, a night of breaking news on top of breaking news. the latest report comes from reuters saying president trump's son-in-law, jared kushner has at least three undisclosed contacts with the russian ambassador during and after the 2016 presidential campaign. seven current and former u.s. officials told reuters. tonight, tonight's reuters report notes, fbi investigators are examining whether russians suggested to kushner or trump aides laxing it would allow

russian banks to allow financing to people with ties to trump, said the current law enforcement official who was a source for the article. joining us is jonathan, the reuters reporter who just broke the story. this is a story coming on top of an earlier story. tonight, it's all about jared kushner and how much contact did he have with russian officials and what has reuters learned? >> we learned at least three calls between jared kushner and the russian ambassador. two of them before the election and there were contacts after the election not only between mr. kushner and president trump's former national security adviser, michael flynn.

we reported this last week about mr. flynn and his conversations after the election centered on setting up a back channel between president trump and president putin that would have circumvented u.s. national security agencies because neither side trusted them. we learned that mr. kushner was also part of those discussions. that was reported by "the washington post" first this evening. and as you pointed out, we have learned that mr. kushner is being looked at. the acts between mr. kushner and the -- >> one of the issues is why did you not disclose all of these contacts? if the defense is i didn't because it was just an oversight, the more contacts he

has, the more of these that pile up, the less credible the oversight explanation is. >> let's not forget the white house denied contacts between mr. kushner and the russians and that was changed to acknowledgement there were two contacts, one during a foreign policy speech by candidate trump last april at a reception that took place during the speech and also an acknowledgement of a meeting at trump's house. as far as the other contacts go, there was no acknowledgement. we talked to mr. kushner's attorney this evening who said he had thousands of calls over this period of time and was

unable fo recall the calls we reported about. did you ask if he would have taken calls? >> there was no acknowledgement of the calls, of those calls, so, no, we didn't because there was no acknowledgement of the call. >> yeah. >> also, i should point out, there was no denial, either. >> right. very important distinction. jonathan, thank you very much for joining us with your breaking news out of reuters tonight, really appreciate that. >> my pleasure. >> in tonight's other breaking news story, "the washington post" saved its best for last this week. reporting tonight that jared kushner decided it was so important for him and other

trump officials to have secret meetings with the kremlin that jared kushner suggested an idea to the russians that one former senior intelligence official in the "washington post" story called, quote, extremely naive or absolutely crazy. those are the only choices that an experienced intelligence official could seek to describe jared's conduct revealed by "the washington post." extremely naive or absolutely crazy. it is possible to be both, naive and crazy. listen to the lead of the "washington post" story and you decide. extremely naive or absolutely crazy. jared kushner and the ambassador suggested the possibility of setting up a see cure channel between trump's transition team

and the kremlin using russian diplomatic abilities and shield preinauguration discussions from monitoring according to u.s. officials briefed on intelligence reports. the united states keeps the russian ambassador and the embassy in close watch. ambassador kislyak -- made the proposal during a meeting on december first or second according to intercepts of russian communications that were reviewed by u.s. officials. kislyak said kushner suggested using russian diplomatic facilities in the united states for communications. the meeting was attended by michael flynn, trump's first

national security adviser. so, tonight, we have just moved a little closer to an explanation of why president trump seems so protective of michael flynn. why president trump appointed michael flynn national security adviser, even though he knew he was under fbi investigation. and why, after firing michael flynn, president trump continues to say michael flynn is a good man and some reports indicate president trump hopes michael flynn will return to white house service one day. why? why is president trump so protective of michael flynn? one answer may be that president trump knows that michael flynn was in that meeting when jared kushner suggested using russian diplomatic facilities for communicating directly with the kremlin. president trump should by now know that jared kushner could be

convicted of a fon and sentenced to five years in prison for not revealing at meeting in his security clearance form. michael flynn has said through his lawyer, that he has a story to tell and he would like immunity to tell that story. now we know that michael flynn has a very, very important story to tell about jared kushner's meeting with the russian ambassador at trump tower when michael flynn finally does tell his story of that meeting that he was in. the question tonight is will he say, will michael flynn say that jared kushner was being extremely naive or absolutely crazy or will michael flynn offer a third description that includes the possibility of criminal intent? it has been another very, very bad week of news for the trump administration. but tonight's report is the

worst news yet for the trump family. joining us now by phone is one of the reporters who broke that story in the "washington post," greg miller. greg, thank you very much for joining us tonight, really appreciate it. this is a breakthrough on top of the reporting of 24 hours ago that indicated the fbi was interested in jared kushner. what more can you tell us? what do you think are the most important elements in your story tonight? >> caller: i think that combination is important. you can begin to understand why the fbi would be so interested in kushner and his contacts with kislyak and other russians. i mean, if they are sitting on intelligence reports with the russian ambassador telling his bosses in moscow, you are not going to believe this, but trump's sonn-w wants a secure channel to talk with the

kremlin and discuss using our facilities in the united states to accomplish that. i mean, it's easy to see why the bureau would want to understand why that is so important, why the trump transition team and a senior figure would want that kind of arrangement. >> greg, any indication as to timing of exactly when this information was intercepted? apparently, according to your report, it appears as if intelligence agencies intercepted the ambassador's communication to moscow about this. >> caller: that's right. it's likely that that was intercepted shortly after the meeting at trump tower, right? this is not surveillance of that meeting, it is the russian ambassador coming out of that meeting and communicating with moscow about what took place. it's very similar, actually, to, well, i mean we have seen in the

past that the communications of the russian ambassador were under surveillance. this actually takes place several weeks before kislyak is recorded in a conversation with michael flynn, a conversation which flynn discusses sanctions, u.s. sanctions with kislyak that leads to flynn losin thiz job 24 days into the trump administration. >> how much do we know about kislyak's reaction to the proposal by jared kushner, which would be as shocking to the russian side as it is to us to hear? >> caller: yeah, the way it was characterized to us is it appeared the russian ambassador was taken aback by the idea z. it's easy to see why. for russian officials in the united states that they would regard it as highly important to have secure communications back

to moscow that are beyond the reach of u.s. surveillance. why would they want to bring an american into their version of a secu secure compartmented facility to have communications with moscow that can't be intercepted. why would they want an american on that line? >> greg miller, thank you for joining us with this stunning report, another one in the "washington post." really appreciate it. we are joined now by max boot, senior fellow for national security studies and a former defense adviser for romney, 2012 and ken vogue l, chief reporter for politico and mika, a lawyer and former house intelligence committee staff adviser. mika, i want to get your reaction to this since you are an intelligence professional,

having worked on the intelligence committee on the house. you hear what we heardrom the reuters report and more contact between kushr and the russians, now this blockbuster in the "washington post" tonight about a suggestion, jared kushner suggesting, can we come into your embassy and use your secure communications to moscow, presumably for communication that he didn't trust to transmit directly to the ambassador. they wanted to transmit directly to moscow. >> i mean this report is almost too shocking to be believed. the idea that jared kushner would say to the russians, i need a secure, classified channel in your embassy, knowing, perhaps the russian embassy is undersurveillance. going in and out would raise red flags to say who knows what.

it is naive or crazy or deceptive. it is just amazing. the other question is, why now? why is this happening now? >> ken, let's remember, jared kushner is the least experienced person, the least qualified person ever to work in a white house prior to january 20th. now, he's in a competition in this white house with other inexperienced, unqualified people to be in the white house like bannon and a bunch of others. it is conceivable that kushner had no idea that there would be a clear fbi record, they would know exactly who went into a russian embassy or who went into a russian facility, diplomatic facility anywhere in this country. >> a couple things. first of all, if this request was made that he wants to say something to the russians that

he doesn't want inlligence to berivy to to be able to ease drop on through the normal channels it might otherwise do so. the naivety comes in when presented as you did. this means he suggested would not be that solution. the other thing that is notable is the presence of mike flynn. you mentioned kushner, he doesn't have a lot of experience. doesn't have a lot of experience in dealing with with international government leaders. mike flynn does and mike flynn has a well developed sort of theory of the cia and the u.s. intelligence community and he is deeply distrustful of it. my intelligence sources tell me that they feared that this distrust for the cia and other parts of the u.s. intelligence apparatus that flynn harbored was seeping into the broader

campaign and donald trump himself and the trump brain. you could see it playing out here if kushner believes, like flynn does, the cia is not to be trusted, that is one possible explanation for what otherwise i agree with mika, an inexplicable request from kushner. >> go ahead, max. >> i was struck, lawrence, by one of the lines in the reuters story you quoted earlier saying fbi investigators are suggesting to kushner and other trump aides that lax would offer financing to people with ties to trump. that is significant. that offers a possible motive for why kushner would do something this sneaky going so far as using the communication channels of the russians. remember, this is after a campaign in which trump and his people were saying lock her up because they claim hillary clinton was committing this incredible security breach by

using a private e-mail server. what do you call using e-mail servers of your main adversary, which is what they were planning to do here. that raises the question, why would they do this. reuters offers a possible explanation. you can speculate there was a pay off involved that the russians helped get donald trump elected. there was an expectation they would get a pay off on it. trump would benefit from the lifting of sanctions. this is just a blockbuster, shocking story that we need to get to the bottom of. >> mika, i want to go to -- >> the timing, mika was saying the timing of why this was coming out now, i agree, that's always interesting. you can say that someone has it in for kushner. i don't think that's completely unfounded as to why this would be coming out now. the timing of the actual meeting

and the request, this is after the election. the reuters story raises the interesting pattern that this conversation between kushner and the russians was happening before the election, that's notable because it raises questions about what he's trying to broker or discuss before that. this is after the election. you know he is going -- he is a part of the transition team, at least there was a prospect of him going into the white house. they would have every right to set up a line of communication and start a foundation or conversation with the russians through, you know, governmental means that the u.s. government would provide them with the security to do so so he is maki this request at that moment isore inexplicable >> lawrence, on this question of timing -- >> there's so much more to come out of the ambassador's report to the kremlin on that meeting. in tonight's report, we know what jared kushner said,

according to the report that he is suggesting that they have this communication set up this way. if there's nuting in it about what mike flynn said, it indicates mike flynn was present, but nothing about what mike flynn said. that could be a whole other chapter of this story. >> yes. i think it's important we have investigators to get to the bottom of this, the special counsel, the congressional meetings. what troubles me is the timing of the leaks is coming from inside the intelligence community itself. it suggests intelligence officials may not have confidence their information is going to get to appropriate authorities who might be able to do something with it, that perhaps there's an attempt to stifle information coming from inside the administration. people feel like they need to put the information out now. if they don't have credible channels, they need to bring it in. >> it is an incredible point.

you have to be suspicious of what jared kushner is up to. this is not the only connection he has with the russians. in this time frame where he was trying to set up with communications channel with kislyak, he was meeting with the head of a russian bank who is very close to putin. what the heck were they discu discussing? we know cnn reports that the russians orchestrated a massive propaganda/advertising on facebook to get donald trump elected. who was the head of data analytics for the trump campaign? that would be jared kushner. maybe they had something significant to discuss. these are the questions robert mueller and the fbi need to get to the bottom of. this is, you know, jared kushner we are talking about here. this is not carter page where they can say he was deeply em meshed with the kremlin, trump

never met him, this is nobody. this is jared kushner, the president's son-in-law. this is as close as you can get to the president himself. >> one more quick thing about the leaks. is it possible the leaks, part of the motivation of the leaks is speed? there could be a worry inside the intelligence community that precautions will not be taken fast enough to control people like jared kushner and, perhaps a leak to "the washington post" might be the fastest inhibitor of his conduct. >> although this leak, as i understood it came in the form of a letter in december, so, it took the post some time to put the pieces together. so, maybe we put ourselves back in that time frame in december bhen we didn't know what was going to happen with the investigation and there was going to be a special prosecutor and jeff sessions would recuse himself. now, there are assurances for

folks who are worried that information will not be able to get into the bloodstream in the inveigatn and access by vestigators, so, i think that some of this is probably a little bit like a delayed timing sort of thing. i also think there may be an effort to buy political foes to put the heat on jared kushner. i texted with a senior official and said how bad is it for jared kushner? he said very bad. >> mika, the legal liability kushner has on not disclosing these meetings. for the moment, leave aside the content of the meetings that could have a legal liability in it. not disclosing these meetings for his security clearance, if he's going to make the defense that, well, i just forgot or it was inadd ver tavertent, the nu meetings and we know the dramatic content of at least one

of these meetings makes it seem like something that would be very hard to forget, very hard to be an oversight when filling out these forms. >> yeah, that's right. the statute seays it's a maximum penalty of five years and fines. often we have seen where it is people having oversight. the penalties are not that big. when it's for espionage, it can be severe. >> lawrence, one other thing, the penalties are not just for jared kushner, they are for donald trump. this is a guy who sits at his right hand, very closely connected to him. i find it hard to believe donald trump did not know what kushner was up to or flynn. it's possible they will be good soldiers, take the hit for him and not rat him out to the independent council. this increases the jeopardy for trump. >> ken and mika, thank you so much for joining us tonight. i appreciate it.

>> thanks. we are joined now by david senior editor for "the atlantic." i want to get your read of the breaking news on top of breaking news tonight. it's all about jared kushner. the last 24 hours has been about jared kushner. >> i want to pick up and underscore what max said. we have two halves here. one-half, which we are talking about today is the sudden urgency of jared kushner to speak to the ruxs after the election or before but before the transition to get the secret channel. why did they want to do that? at the same time, this is max's reminder, we have in the past ten days new information. urgently, the russians want to electio election donald trump in 2016 and how much they did for his campaign. these two pieces always have to

be seen together. well, i think you said earlier, is there an innocent explanation for why he would do this? maybe he wants to play junior henry kissinger and lost the plot. you have to remember the other piece and it's not consistent with that approach to the story. >> and, david, the -- again, i want to go to the idea, you have worked in the white house. you know what it's like to fill out disclosure forms of various kin kinds, financial disclosure and people do forget to include certain things. when you are making that defense that i forgot, we look at how much you forgot, and how big that thing was that you forgot. that's when we start to doubt that you just forgot. >> i had to fill out a form that said how many times have you crossed the borde at that time, we had young children and t sets of

grandparents in canada. i said i will never be able to get this exactly right. this is before electronic calendars. he said it would be an innocent mistake, don't worry about it. you make mistakes and there are allowances for innocent mistakes. this is just so obviously not forgetting one of the trips to the grandparent's house. this is a different kind of thing. no one is going to forget this. >> we are joined by washington columnist for "the boston globe" and with the pointer institute for media studies and evelyn, senior fellow, responsible for policy toward russia. evelyn, i need to get your reaction to this report indic e indicating that jared kushner said we would like to come into your place and use your secure communication to communicate with your boss because talking to the russian ambassador wasn't

good enough for jared kushner. he wanted to talk directly to the kremlin. >> lawrence, it's unfathomable. i don't think i'm supposed to tear my hair out on tv. first of all, they were about to take office anyway. i don't understand the need for secrecy and they are hiding from their own government, their own government officials, the united states of america. this whole thing is unbelievable to me, frankly speaking. to say tha you would go into the russian embassy, y are becoming part of their inlligence operation in a sense. i'm not surprised the russian ambassador would be taken aback. we set up secret -- not secret. the content was secret, but we set up communications channel, the public knew we did it with the russian military, military channels. that requires the communication teams from each side to cooperate together. they do it very carefully so

there is nothing revealed from either side. the fact that the -- that jared kushner and whoever else was involved in this could have such a flagrant disrespect for the united states people, the united states intelligence community, the united states secrets that they thought they could operate with the russian government is staggering. >> of course nothing like this could ever have happened in a previous white house administration. this is a uniquely trumpian event we are talking about. if anything like this happened in any white house, jared kushner would be fired by now, by the second hour of the existence of this report at the very, very latest be fired or resignation demanded tomorrow morning in the white house and that press release would go out, he's no longer with us. what will jared kushner -- what

will it mean for his future in his father-in-law's white house? >> i don't want to declare him guilty before we know all the facts. certainly the mind boggles at the reports we have seen. as evelyn and david said, it is hard to comprehend if the story is true, why there is aurpose for setting uis back channel. it is truly bizarre. people saying is it ignorance or treasonous, there can be a pattern that takes you down the path of treason before you know it. i think the point you are making about how anyone else, their head would be on a plate and they would have to turn in their resignation. this is part of the problem of having family members in the white house and part of the reason most administrations have antinepotism policies. you don't generally have close family members as immediate advisers, it's generally not done. so, you know, of course the

president is overseas, this is an unusual situation. we know with him, blood is thicker than anything else or through marriage in this case. i'm sure he will stand behind kushner. we are going to have to see how it plays out. >> it may be more than blood. donald trump, if the business interest explanation -- >> maybe money. >> we have no idea how much donald trump owes and to whom he owes it. the line, what does the president know and when did he know it? in this case, what does the president know and who does he owe it. maybe this is part of the answer to that question. >> evelyn, go ahead with that point, it may be money, especially in the reuters report tonight, we are hearing t t possibility of maybe if you soften the sanctions or remove the sanctions, russian banks will help trump friends.

>> this is the thing. all along, we have been getting this dribble drabble of information about the trump organizations dealings with russia. russians invested heavily or the trump sons invested heavily in trump enterprises. we have reports of real estate transactions that occurred using russian money. obviously, the fbi is looking into all of this. where the reports about jared kushner talking about the kremlin or the russians, intersect has to do with sanctions. the russians want sanctions lifted. it wouldn't be the whole kit and caboodle because they want a free hand over eastern europe, but they want the sanctions lifted. >> evelyn, thank you very much for joining us, really appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, if the russians didn't know that u.s. spies were listening to their ambassador, they do now.

of course, they have always known that. but, maybe jared kushner didn't know it. former director of the cia, john mclaughlin will join us next. the future isn't silver suits and houses on mars,

it's right now. think about it. we can push buttons and make cars appear out of thin air. find love anywhere. he's cute. and buy things from, well, everywhere. how? because our phones have evolved. so isn't it time our networks did too? introducing america's largest, most reliable 4g lte combined with the most wifi hotspots. it's a new kind of network. xfinity mobile. i know what the russians try to do. they try to suborn individuals, and they try to get individuals, including u.s. persons to act on their behalf either wittingly or unwittingly. >> that's former cia director john brennan this week before the house intelligence committee. joining us now, john mclaughlin,

the 32-year veteran of the cia, and was the acting cia director. he is also an msnbc national security analyst. i just want to, john, reread this lead paragraph from "the washington post" tonight for anyone in our audience who is joining late. and none of us have read this only once. and so the audience will experience what we've all done, which is read it a couple of times to really comprehend it and believe what we're reading. it says "jared kushner and russia's ambassadors to washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between trump's transition team and the kremlin using russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their preinauguration discussions from monitoring, according to u.s. officials briefed on intelligence reports." john mclaughlin, you worked in the cia. you come across say an

intercepted russian communication which seems to be the source of this. what would be the internal cia reaction to intercepting this communication from the russian ambassador indicating that jared kushner wanted to set up this secret communication? >> well, lawrence, if that's what it was, the first reaction would be is this a prank? it would be kind of disbelief. because it's not the sort of thing you would expect to happen in a normal transition. so oddly for me, i was thinking about it tonight. i see all of this through the eyes of an intelligence officer, of course. and it is simultaneously familiar and bizarre. familiar in the sense that i know secret channels, used them all my life. bizarre in the sense that it's a proposed secret channel through

the government that is probably the most active government in the world in carrying out espionage against the united states. and at a time, recall the timing here too. it's on october 3, about two months before this that the intelligence community, the director of national intelligence in combination with the secretary of homeland security puts out a report with high confidence saying that the russians hacked our election. this is the first of two reports. so in that context, if you were to get this at the cia, having read that and having known that, your first reaction would be could this be true? and then you would discover it is true and move on from there. i don't want to overstate because obviously there is a lot we don't know. we don't know the exact content of the conversation.

we don't know the objective that was stated from the kushner side during the conversation. those things we don't know. but i can't keep out of my mind the thought that if an american intelligence officer had done anything like this, we'd consider it espionage. >> yeah. would it be fair to say that a conversation like that, even if it wasn't -- even if the plan wasn't executed, gives the russians the feeling that they own jared kushner. they own a person from that point forward who would make a suggestion like this? >> i think, you know, we're all struggling to understand. a couple of thoughts here. i think to some degree, the trump administration athe senior levels is being consumed by its own hubris. they must think of themselves as masters of the universe.

and put that in combination with their evident -- and this is what i think bothers me personally the most -- their seeming contempt of american institutions, the denigrating things they've said about everything from our judiciary to our intelligence agencies. these institutions, including in fact the intelligence agencies, because they're closely supervised in the united states, these are the functions of our democracy. and i can't help thinking that in the background of all of this is that sophomoric idea we used to hear about deconstructing the administrative state, that somehow we shouldn't use these institutions, we should use the ones we trust more, the russians? that doesn't make any sense to me. and so, you know, there is a lot we don't know here. and it really does underline again the need for someone as independent as they can be to take all of this and get to the bottom of it.

and pretty quickly. >> john mclaughlin, thank you very much for joining us on this important night. thank you. really appreciate it. >> thank you, lawrence. coming up, it's no wonder that the trump administration cannot get anything done legislatively or anything else, because they are now drowning in their connections to russia and the constant daily exposure of the next big story in the scandal that won't go away.

before tonight stunning reports in "the washington post" that jared kushner suggested to the russian ambassador that the -- that trump transition

team officials use russian secure communication facilities to communicate directly with moscow, and before tonight's reuters report revealing that jared kushner had many more contacts with the russian ambassador than has been previously acknowledged, the trump administration let it be known that they were considering creating a war room to deal with all things russia as the investigation widens. their war room was supposed to be led by reince priebus, along with rumored white house rivals steve bannon and jared kushner was supposed to be one of the leaders, if not the leader of that war room, which now of course will be concentrating on what to do about jared kushner. white house aides tell nbc news that they're preparing for, quote, a new reality, particularly now that special counsel robert mueller is

leading the investigation. but the new reality is that jared kushner is in the dead center of that investigation. back with us david frum and indira lakshmanan. david frum, this war room concept, which was old news because it was something that came out this afternoon, is now supposed to be the place where i guess the great brains of the white house who have no experience dealing with any of this kind of thing would somehow figure out how to spin what it was that jared kushner meant when he suggested to the russian ambassador that the trump transition team should be allowed to use russian communication facilities to communicate directly with the kremlin. >> when you have a good story, you don't seup war room. u invite the press in, and you take their questions until they geboasking them. >> yeah. and indira, the war room concept of course is fascinating. they don't want to set up a war

room to pass their health care bill. they don't want to set up a war room to try to pass their giant tax cut, because those things just have disappeared from anything that's really happening in washington. it is now all about defense. it is now all about defending the trump transition team, possibly the president himself, and now definitely jared kushner involving their connections to russia. >> i have a new name for them for their room. let's call it the crisis chamber. i mean, this is insanity. first of all, we know that the president himself while on this foreign trip all over the world for nine days outside of his comfort zone and literally shoving nato to the side, you know, he is lawyering up. so he knows that this is getting closer, and taking an outside counsel is something intelligent that trump has done in this regard. but i think that setting up this

what i'm going to continue to call more like a crisis chamber is, again, a strange thing, that it's being led by the very guy who is the focus of the investigation. you know, we'll see whether he turns into a target. he is not legally a target yet. but the information is coming faster at us than, you know, than we can count. >> david, one of the questions that emerges from almost all of these stories involving russian connections is whose side are they on? whose side is donald tmp on? whose side is jared kushner on? why would you want to use russian communication facilities if you really are on the united states' side in the vladimir putin versus the united states challenge that certainly emerged in 2016 with the russians trying to hack our election and other points of friction with russia. whose side are you on becomes the question.

and jared kushner saying i want to use your communication facilities certainly is an indication of which side he may be on. >> let me offer two hypothesises here. on one part of the story. a smart hypothesis and a dumb one. as we have learned and talked about earlier, the russians made a much bigger commitment to the donald trump campaign in 2016 as we have learned over the past ten days than we had known even before that. massive organization of facebook ads. now the dumb theory is that the trump/kushner people were so profoundly touched by this they thought they must like us. they must really like us. let's have a wonderful conversation with them and solve all the problems of the world like junior henry kissingers. the darker theory is that they became aware the russians have stuff on us. and there are people in our campaign were maybe talking to them. maybe we don't even know what everybody in our campaign was doing, and they have us by the throat and we need their good will.

>> all right. we're going to take a quick break right here. everybody stay with us. we're going to be right back.

it is an act, probably the single most destructive act. western alliance, in the history of the alliance. its not just a military alliance. the whole idea of nato is to organize a group of like-minded nations who believe in liberal democracy, open and free trade, free markets. that's the idea of nato. defending ourselves against first the soviet union, now increasingly russia. when you weaken the western alliance as i think the president did today it strengthens russia. >> david, it raises that question again. whose side is donald trump on when he basically does everything -- he said everything he could that vladimir putin would want him to say about nato. >> i compiled in the atlantic today some quotes from president obama and bush about what they

said when they went to nato summits and about the intents of the commitment. they will then close the door and express their complaints. don't spend enough, don't give enough from their military. that's behind the closed doors. in public it's one for all, we will defend you. donald trump omitted to say that and that's astonishing. >> but it is a piece. what happened with nato is very much a piece of what was happening with jared kushner, talking to the russian ambassador, seeking to have these secret xhukdz channels opened up. it's something -- >> right. >> we've never seen before. but it is a very, very consistent pro-putin posture. >> it's incredible, though, lawrence. i think donald trump doesn't realize or isn't willing to understand that the thing about the nato alliance is that it has benefitted us. the only time in the whole history of nato since it was created post world war ii that article 5, which is the one for all, all for one article of

mutual defense, the only time that has been invoked and used was for the mutual defense of the united states. and that's after the 9/11 attacks when the rest of nato stood behind the united states and went to war in afghanistan with us. so when he stands there at the nato summit literally shoving -- you showed the image of him shoving the prime minister of moldova out of the way to get to the front of the pack there and insultingly says things about you nato allies, we are not sure whether you are up to it and whether we are going to hold up our end of the bargain when you you're not doing what we want you to do. in fact, these are the ones, especially the baltic states who are paying more than their share and who have been helping us in afghanistan. so it's pretty insulting. i hear from my sources, not only former u.s. ambassadors to nato, but people who are nato leaders and nato ambassadors from other countries. they are stunned and extremely

upset about what trump did the did, and insulting angela merkel and saying the germans are bad. you know, it is stunning. and you know, he's praising saudi arabia, praising repressive states, praising the philippines' dictator and not praising our friends, who are democrats. >> david, the europeans and members of nato all reading in their own newspapers tomorrow that jared kushner tried to set up this secret communication channel directly to the kremlin. >> look, holding together this alliance is getting harder and harder. there are a lot of people in europe, there are a lot of people in germany with an eye on door. it is a fficult relationship to maintain. what donald trump -- by attacking the german part of it in particular, he is striking at the backbone the whole western alliance and making things very difficult. making it easy for some bad actors, too. >> david frum, and andeara,

thank you for joining us tonight. ral appreciate it. we'll take a break and be right back.

earlier in this hour, mika brzezinski announced her father, jimmy carter's national security adviser, died tonight. he served as a counselor to president lindon b. johnson from 1966 to 168. he then served as jimmy carter's national security adviser from 1977 to 1981. during the carter administration, he was involved in major foreign policy actions, including the normalization of relations with the people's republic of china, the signing of the second strategic arms limitation treaty, and the brokering of the camp david

accords. zbigniew brzezinski died tonight at innova fairfax hospital in falls church, virginia. he was 89 years old. rachel is a bit under the weather, so we're giving her the night off. we begin with some brand-new blockbuster breaking news from "the washington post." first, a report on the bipartisan expansion of the scope of one of the inquiries into possible trump campaign collusion with the russian attack on our presidential election. the senate intel committee has asked trump's political campaign to gather and produce all documents, e-mails and phone records going all the way back to when the campaign began in june 2015. we want to note for you, this is a bipartisan request from the republican chair and the democratic ranking member of the committee. we are going to tell you a bit more about this news breaking late tonight a little later in th